Greeting Cards. The Greeting Card business is an enormous industry. Greeting cards give one the ability to select a wide range of printed messages and to write personal messages. Often the greeting card accompanies another gift, but it has become widespread practice to send the greeting card as a gift itself. Greeting cards generally do not provide an intrinsic ability to safely and attractively contain and mail disks or gift cards although it is not unusual for one to include an additional paper item, such as a letter, photograph, personal check, and gift certificate, inside the card.
Gift Cards. Gift Cards have become a well-accepted alternative to shopping for and selecting specific gifts for others. Standard gift cards are plastic cards of the general size of a credit card and, like credit cards, contain magnetic storage means for recording information. One can purchase a magnetically recorded gift card of a user-selectable dollar value that enables the bearer of the card to purchase items within the establishment that issues the gift card. The gift card offers the advantages of simplifying the gift purchasing process and giving the recipient the choice to select what is personally desired. Establishments encourage the purchase of gift cards because the sale of a gift card is a revenue event, and moreover the bearer of the gift card will come to the store and perhaps purchase goods exceeding the value of the gift card. Gift cards are generally given to others loosely contained in a greeting card, a box, or simply in an envelope. Some gift cards are mounted on foldable paperboard such that the appearance of the gift card is more attractive than a gift card without such packaging.
Disks. The widespread adoption of digital still cameras, digital camcorders, digital music recorders and players, personal computers, slide-show and movie production software and photo processing software for personal computers in the marketplace gives rise to a need to easily and attractively share such recorded and perhaps processed information with others. Compact disks (CDs) and digital versatile disks (aka digital video disks) (DVDs) have become ubiquitous media for recording and transporting music, movies, photos, and generally digital files of all kinds. Although electronic transfer of such voluminous files are technically feasible, such a method typically suffers from lengthy transmission times because of the large file size for the type of aforementioned files, and such a delivery method, lacking packaging, fails to convey the a sense of gift giving to the recipient that is an object of this invention. Moreover, it is not uncommon for interne service providers (ISPs) to block transmission of email containing attached files or email exceeding a certain size, to prevent the spread of computer viruses and to minimize the performance-degrading traffic load on servers.
Recognizing the enormous market for such applications of disks, manufacturers have developed writeable disks (for example, CD-R and DVD-R disks), re-writeable (re-useable) disks (for example CD-RW and DVD-RW disks), disk labeling equipment and materials, and direct-printable disks benefiting the buying public.
CDs can be recorded in various formats depending on the application. Two common forms are (1) audio CDs that play on CD drives popular in entertainment equipment, automobiles, portable music equipment, and the like, for playing music and other audio programs, and (2) data CDs (aka CD-ROMs) for recording and reading digital files by CD drives common to personal computers. Virtually all CD drives sold today, both of the audio and data kind, are capable of recording and reading or playback.
Similarly, DVDs can be recorded in various formats depending on the application. Two common forms are (1) video DVDs that play on DVD drives designed for displaying video presentations such as movies on televisions in home entertainment systems, and the like, and (2) data DVDs for recording and reading digital files by DVD drives that are increasingly common to personal computers. Data DVDs are well known to have storage capacity far in excess of data CDs. Virtually all video DVD drives and a large and growing percentage of data DVD drives sold today are capable of recording and reading or playback.
Consumers frequently send their information recorded on disks with their own custom paper labels affixed to the disks. However, paper labels can interfere with operation of some disk players. As a consequence, consumers have turned to printing custom labels directly on disk. Affordable consumer style printers such as the Epson R200 are available that can print directly on disk. Consumers also desire a recordable disk that is preprinted with an attractive or appropriate label, obviating the need for the consumer to own or have access to a printer capable of printing on disk, and as an alternative to handwriting information on the disk using an ink marker pen.
Similarly, businesses have adopted the disk as a convenient method for (1) distributing voluminous materials including reports, catalogs, price lists, still images, and movies promoting products and services to retailers, distributors, brokers, dealers, original equipment manufacturers, and end-use customers, (2) delivery of product itself (music, movies, consultation reports and the like), and (3) generally communicating with customers (product catalogs and corporate image pieces), investors (annual reports) and employees (company events).
The popularity of distributing information via disk, of greeting cards, and of gift cards and the like gives rise to the need to mail said items in a convenient method and package that is also attractive commensurate with gift giving and business applications. Present methods for mailing disks include placement of disks in plastic “jewel cases” or paperboard sleeves, then inserting the packaged disks into plain envelopes, perhaps with protective padding, such as are available for purchase at the US Post Office and office supplies stores. Present methods for mailing cards include inserting the card, perhaps affixed to a paperboard holder, into a greeting card envelope and sending with the greeting card, or sending in a common letter envelope perhaps with a personal message. The present Multimedia Mailer invention simultaneously offers the desired attributes of a greeting card (printed and personal message with attractive graphics), a disk mailer (secure place for holding and presenting one or more disks without using a jewel case or sleeve), and a card mailer (secure place for holding and presenting one or more cards), in a novel and convenient self-mailer, no envelope being required, that can be ornamented as seen appropriate for gifts applications.